To the Lighthouse: Ride the Storm of Life to the Shores of Deeper Truth.
As frightening as the storm on the horizon appears, fear not, for this is natural intelligence at play… our evolution at hand.
There are times in each of our lives where we feel the surge of overwhelming and crushing emotional turmoil. Life undeniably presents us with challenges, heartbreak, and pain beyond which we think we cannot survive.
We’re seemingly out of control, tossed about relentlessly by an unforgiving current, rolled under the pounding break of the waves, where the light no longer reaches and the panic of our inability to breathe threatens to suffocate us.
And yet, it is into this helpless state of proverbial churn that we must allow ourselves to go. For within this journey, the radiance of the lighthouse can become more than a mere observance in the distance. We gain the understanding of what the lighthouse really is, and we then ride the storm with new reverence, with gratitude for the evolutionary opportunity we’ve been gifted.
But we can question why we must undergo the tempest in the first place. Because we are creatures that do not change by observance, we change when we must, when our very life-force feels threatened by the tempest. Thus, evolution requires a mighty squall.
And the Universe must stir the currents to beckon the tumult, to provide the means of evolution. All the while, it sits shining its light from afar, awaiting our return to shore.
The shoreline itself is our deeper truth, that which is awaiting our landing. Its sands exist to provide the container, the basin, within which we churn and undulate, and is always there to provide sure footing when or if we choose to explore it. This basin contains us, allowing us to drift with the tide within and either sink or swim as we will in this lifetime.
The voyage of life is not an easy one, nor is the ocean of our humanness meant to be inherently safe or dangerous. It is simply meant to flow and undulate. As any ocean, it is alive, and the constant movement signals that we are too.
And as we sway with the gentle current through much of our static lives, inevitably storm clouds appear in the distance. We watch as they continue to approach, darkening the horizon. Somewhere deep inside, we have a knowing that torrential events approach. And then, the tempest is upon us,
When tidal waves of emotion rush in and upset the tranquility of the normal placid waters, and their deluge floods our ability to make sense of the moment, we lose our comfort, we lose touch with the shoreline.
We are inundated by a torrent of turbulent feelings that are really only themselves energetic ripples created by underlying tremors, like the creation of a tsunami wave by the quaking of the Earth underneath the ocean.
The actual creation of the very moment that draws us into disempowerment is not the actual storm overhead. It is our reaction from underneath to the storm. It is the earthquake created from the trembling emotions we incite from within ourselves, stirred up from the sands deep within our core, from past experience, false belief, and even connection to the collective or ancestral energetics.
Neural pathways have been entrenched deeply and we habitually continue to react in the same patterned way, as the same torrent of emotions stir faithfully. And we churn.
There is a tremble, a vibration of shuddering proportion that swells and heaves. It has risen from the deep, to bring us a surge of upheaval, one from which we meet a moment of choice, to drown in repetitive behavior or open our sails to the winds of new possibilities, to evolve. Evolution isn’t meant to be painless, it is meant to be thunderous, colossal, and even so, it is in alignment with the nature of everything.
Titanic emotions in these moments can be seen as either the flashing warning signal of impending doom that you are once again going to succumb and sink under the habitual deadly wave, or an energetic lighthouse signaling a path to safety. This requires riding the wave of emotion, all the way to its shore.
Grasp the tempestuous and raging emotional tide with every ounce of remaining energy, sit astride, and ride. Breathe in the salty sea, mixing with your own tears as they threaten to dismount you. Feel the static electricity in the air around you as the thunderbolts of storm strike against your wet skin. Hear the deafening cacophony of the storm wail against you, shouting angrily at your rebellion. And ride.
The lighthouse blinks in the distance, guiding you, to shores of deeper knowing. It is watching you, heralding to you, silently applauding your ride. You know from its persistence that the danger is only created by your own fear and there is really nothing to fear but the validation of fear itself. And the storm begins to recede as you get closer to shore.
Feel the waves of life, know that the movements of our core are somatic in nature, responding to and with emotional energies, and opportunities for us to know just how abundant and alive we are.
We are not hostage to our core, we can become conscious to it, of it and build a relationship with it that brings presence to its ancient patterns that we now bring conscious choice to. And though the waves of emotion can be gentle or torrential, they always break against the shore of deeper truth if we choose to ride them.
Let our emotions be the catalyst, the storm by which we find our way to breaking against the shores of deeper truth. All the while, trusting in the light from afar, guiding us home, with a beacon that invites us deeper into our core, knowing that to be willing to weather the storm aligns us. The lighthouse beckons to us through the mists of the storm… to ride life and evolve.
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Maggie Pandolfi is an advocate for, and practitioner of, evolutionary impulse and wild awareness. She is ravenous about exploration, and thrives on curiosity. She believes that true power can be found in the ability to be in the question, not the answer. She aspires to being in service to the bigger perspective, and when not found writing in her sanctuary, she can be found enjoying nature, her grandson, wandering, and women’s communities .